Americans Abroad: Weekend Preview

Tim Howard and Everton have long dreamed of returning to the UEFA Champions League.

Now is the perfect time to position themselves to do so.

Currently sitting in fifth place and with a game in hand, Howard and Everton can close the four-point gap Arsenal have on them with a win at Goodison Park on Sunday. The Toffees have been eyeing Arsenal’s fourth-placed spot and UEFA Champions League qualifiers berth that comes with it for some time now, and a victory over the Gunners would go a long way in helping Everton obtain it.

Geoff Cameron is also preparing for a match against one of the Premiership’s best teams. Stoke City will attempt to play spoiler to second-place Chelsea’s title hopes by grabbing a result against the Blues at Stamford Bridge. Cameron is likely to be deployed at right back, and should be in for a tough test against talented star players like Oscar and Andre Schurrle.

Another player who could face his respective league’s runners-up is Alejandro Bedoya. FC Nantes are set for a visit to Ligue 1 powerhouse AS Monaco, and Bedoya is hoping to get on the field for the Canaries and repeat the type of impressive showing he had when these two teams last met in October. An upset victory for Bedoya and Nantes would be a big boost for them, and also surely would not hurt the midfielder’s chances of making it onto the U.S. Men’s National Team’s preliminary World Cup roster next month.

8 Responses to Americans Abroad: Weekend Preview

Franco has posted a lot this week… allow me to offer a respite by drafting the Americans Abroad recap in advance…

-Aron Johannson played 85 minutes and scored a brace (Cut and Paste from previous)
-Geoff Cameron started and played 90 minutes in Stoke City’s low-scoring draw
-Fabian Johnson might have started, and some injury he has is almost certainly not serious
-Mix Diskerud,Terrence Boyd, and Sacha Kliejstan played significant minutes in a game none of us could have possibly have watched
-Josh Gatt is deceased.
-Jozy Altidore may or may not have dressed/played against former US stalwart Brad Friedel’s Tottenham. Friedel failed to score.
-Oguchi Onyewu, Danny Williams, Juan Agudelo Tim Ream, Eric Lichaj, Jonathan Spector and a couple other guys played and did just enough to keep their increasingly irrational hopes alive
-Jermaine Jones brushed up on his Portuguese while avoiding injury against a Turkish team whose name no German, American or Turkish person could possibly pronounce
-A bunch of guys played soccer in Mexico. One guy named DaMarcus Beasley is probably going to Brazil. Or is he (???????)
-In the weekend’s most heartbreaking tragedy, Brek Shea dressed but did not play for Stoke City. Fellow Yanks Stuart Holden and Steve Cherundolo expressed their disappointment, as this forced a delayof Shea’s debut presentation to the Americans Abroad Book Club,,,, Rumours suggest the topic was Tolstoy. Witnesses concur that Holden threw a tantrum over this “unfair” postponement.

Well that’s about it…. Probably the other guys played too. But it’s pretty close to done I think. Go soak in the weekend and I can update the rest when we know more.

Um Jack Mac ended up broken after the Gold Cup. He probably needs to go to USL PRO before thinking about going to Belgium. Not that he should go to USL PRO…just saying he is closer to that kind of step (down) than Europe.